Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: Important Information – open to read:
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
Hi, looking for some advice. My wife left me over 18 months ago after she had an affair. I bought her out of the house and we have 50-50 custody of our 15 yr old daughter. I drew up a separation agreement dividing assets etc and pay her £350 per month maintenance ( used the gov calculator to get to that figure) , in addition to this I also pay 50% of her dance school fees and 50% of school uniform and any other school items, so approx another £100 per month. I also buy daughter clothes etc when needed. A friend recently mentioned that as we share custody 50-50 I should not pay maintenance, is this correct? My ex wife is in full time employment as a teacher earning circa £45k and is in receipt of child benefit for our daughter, my earnings are double my ex's. Many thanks
Hi
Why don't you use the CMS calculator to work out any liability.
Usually, 50/50 would mean that there isn't much liability, if any, either way, but the calculator should help
Hello Wazmack
From what you have written it sounds like you have a family-based arrangement in place for your child maintenance payments. As family-based arrangements are not legally enforceable and there are no strict rules or formulas to stick to when calculating maintenance payments, it would be between you and your ex-wife to discuss and negotiate your child maintenance.
The Child Maintenance Options website has a useful tools and guides section that you and your ex-wife may find helpful when trying to negotiate their family-based arrangement. These can be found at http://www.cmoptions.org.
If an application were made to the Government’s statutory the Child Maintenance Service, you are legally responsible only for the amount worked out by the Child Maintenance Service and are not obliged to pay for anything extra, unless you wish to do so.
The Child Maintenance Service takes shared care into account in different ways depending on the paying parent’s child maintenance rate. Shared care applies if the paying parent provides overnight care for at least 52 nights per year before a liability will be reduced. This is based on the agreement with the receiving parent and or evidence. Shared care is usually determined over a twelve month basis, but shorter periods can be considered in appropriate cases.
If the paying parent can prove that they carry out an equal amount of day-to-day care as well as having equal shared care then the Child Maintenance Service regards neither parent to be the paying parent so their child maintenance would be set as nil – even if one parent receives Child Benefit or tax credits as the child’s parent. Where there is equal day to day care, and there is no paying parent means that there cannot be a statutory case and the Child maintenance Service would not being able to process the application as there is no identifiable paying parent.
For more information on all the different ways to set up child maintenance and for a more personalised service, you can visit the Child Maintenance Options website.
The DWP have a sorting out separation website that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/.
Regards
William
Thanks for the advice William
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.